Category Archives: Oly Rollers

The 2014 roller derby season kicks off this evening when the Oly Rollers play host to Snohomish County’s Jet City Hula Honeys at Skateland! beginning at 6:30 PM. Tonight is the first of three bouts over the next week for the four Olympia area roller derby organizations – Oly Rollers, Underground Derby, JBLM Bettie Brigade and MIA Derby Girl – here in Derby City USA.

The Oly Rollers are the reigning USARS national champions after plowing through a schedule of less experienced, weaker, USARS opponents last season. But they will return to their roots this season with five WFTDA rules home bouts currently on the schedule through June and a trip to the WFTDA Big O Tournament in Eugene, Oregon in early May in the works. The WFTDA is the standard, largest and most competitive governing body in roller derby and Oly won the national championship in 2009 and finished second in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before taking a leave from the championship tournament last season.

Doors open tonight at Skateland! at 6:00 PM with derby action getting underway at 6:30. Tickets are available at the door for $15.

The Oly Rollers have posted their 2014 season, highlighted by home bouts against the travel teams from Montreal Roller Derby and St. Louis’ Arch Rivals. They will also travel to the Big O tournament in Eugene, Oregon where they will have the chance to face highly ranked WFTDA teams Rose City, Texas, Philly and Kansas City.

Oly will open their season against the Jet City Hula Honeys on January 18th at Skateland! and will follow that up with a February date with fellow Olympia area MIA Derby. And in April they will face Seattle’s Rainier Roller Girls. According to their website, they also expect to announce more bouts soon.

All of the currently schedule bouts are listed as using the WFTDA rule set and you can expect to see the Cosa Nostra Donnas, the varsity team of the Oly Rollers, qualify for the WFTDA playoffs after not playing enough WFTDA bouts to qualify last season. Oly focused on the USARS rule set last season and were never tested, easily rolling to their second straight USARS national championship.

Photo from the JBLM Bettie Brigade Facebook page

In other derby news, the JBLM Bettie Brigade and their youth league, the JBLM Bettie Bratz, announced last week that they have moved from their home on the base to a warehouse that they are leasing at 5700 Lacey Boulevard. The warehouse is located on the corner of Lacey Boulevard and Clearbrook Drive and is near Meconi’s, Cheers, Cutters Point Coffee and more and should provide a great location for roller derby fans.

“We are still a military league and we still affiliate with JBLM,” the announcement on their Facebook page read, “however we needed the space to grow and be more accessible to our non-military fans who may have a hard time getting on base for bouts.”

Also moving into the facility will be the M.I.A. Derby Girls. M.I.A. has played their home bouts at the South Sound Sports Center in Tumwater until this season and will now share the Bettie Bunker with JBLM.

The first bout scheduled for the Bettie Bunker in Lacey is on January 18th between facility mates M.I.A. and the Bettie Brigade. For more info, click here.

With the addition of the Bettie Brigade, the Olympia area is now home to four roller derby organizations: the Oly Rollers, Underground Derby, JBLM and M.I.A. Welcome to Derby City USA.

The Oly Rollers didn’t get the shutout like yesterday but they dominated Seattle’s Antagonist Roller Derby with a 124-18 win to advance to the USARS Roller Derby championship game in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Oly will take on Port T’Orchard at 3:00 PM Pacific Time for the title.

The Oly Warriors, the men’s side of the Oly Rollers, picked up two wins on Saturday, knocking off Tulsa 206-23 and Your Mom 53-44 in a bout that ended midway through the second half when Your Mom collected too many fouls and had too many player disqualified to continue. The Warriors will play Your Mom again on Sunday at 1:15 PM Pacific Time for the USARS title.

On Senior day at Evergreen Pitch, Seniors Greg Wolfe, Joseph Ademofe and Dyson Fowler each scored in their last career home game in Evergreen’s 3-1 win over Oregon Tech. Seniors Collin Harlow and Mauricio Sanchez split time in goal collecting four saves in the win. The win put a little bit of much needed distance between the Geoducks and the Hustlin’ Owls for the fourth and final playoff spot in the CCC. Evergreen hits the road for four conference games to close out the regular season.

Saint Martin’s scored three goals in the final 10 minutes of regulation to comeback from a 4-1 deficit and earn a double overtime, 4-4 draw with the University of Mary. All eight goals in the game were scored in the second half including a goal by the Saints’ Ivan Gonzalez in the 60th minute and goals by Dylan Gaydosh, Jake Zimmer and Luke Chouinard in the 80th, 82nd and 89th minutes respectively.

With their 119-30 win over Antagonist Roller Derby, the Oly Rollers took first place in the USARS Region 1 Qualifier and will move on to nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma beginning on October 25th where they will look to defend their 2012 title.

Underground Derby went 2-2 at regionals, playing four bouts in two days. They took fourth place after knocking off tournament hosts OneWorld 158-19 in the morning game and dropping a 177-36 decision to Port T’Orchard in the afternoon.

Like the 24 hour access to Ingersoll Stadium? Concerned about the vandalism? Tonight the Olympia School District will host the first of two public forums about future community use at the stadium at the Knox Administrative Center beginning at 6:30 PM. – Link

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Decoda Sordahl, or LiL Tonka as she is known at Skateland! for the Oly Rollers, is featured on the Team USA website as the USA Roller Sports Roller Derby Spotlight for July. – Link

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Northwest Elite Index ranked the top ten football uniforms in Washington State and gave Tumwater the #4 spot. But because #1 WF West has a gimmick gray-for-gray’s sake uniform and #2 and #3 go black-for-black’s sake, I automatically bump the T-Birds up to #1. – Link

This news is almost a month old, but the Oly Rollers confirmed to the Derby News Network that they will not be competing in the WFTDA post-season this year after winning The Hydra in the first year they were eligible in 2009 and then three straight second place finishes in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Oly did not schedule enough WFTDA sanctioned events to qualify for the post-season opting to schedule more USARS events this season. – Link

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North Thurston alum and ex-US National Team and Seattle Sounders goalkeeper Kasey Keller will join the US National Team as a goalkeeper coach for the remainder of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. – Link

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Timberline 2009 graduate and current Eastern Washington linebacker Ronnie Hamlin has been named to the Buck Buchanan Award Watch List, one of 20 nominees for the outstanding defensive player in the Football Championship Series regular season. Hamlin is a senior at Eastern but could be granted a sixth year after missing both 2009 and 2010 with injuries. He has played in 25 games since and had 136 tackles last season. – Link

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Another Timberline grad, Cameron Peck, continued his hot 2013 summer taking home the PNGA Men’s Amateur Championship with a 7 and 6 win over Hans Reimer in Bandon, Oregon. Peck also won the Washington State Amateur earlier this summer. – Link

The Oly Rollers host an intersquad bout tonight to benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Tickets are just $5 or by donation and they will have a load of items to auction off with all money raised going to Relay for Life. Items available for auction include Team USA Derby jerseys, Oly Rollers Cosa Barbie dolls, Oly Rollers photo book from their awesome team photographer Joe Rollerfan and more from various sponsors and supporters. Doors open tonight at 6:00 PM with derby action getting underway at 6:30 PM.

International Basketball League

Olympia Reign vs. Nippon Tornadoes – SPSCC gymnasium – 7:00 PM

Not interested in game seven of the NBA finals? Well, the Olympia Reign wrap up their 2013 season, all of two games since they are considered a “branding team” that is still alive but looking for new sponsors and ownership, tonight at SPSCC against the Nippon Tornadoes. The Reign knocked off the Tornadoes last week 161-117 behind Nate Menefee’s 45 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists and Mike Ward’s 25 points, nine rebounds and 14 assists. The Reign roster for tonight includes a host of former Evergreen Geoducks including Menefee and Ward and former Saint Martin’s star Blake Poole, who is currently a member of the Bellingham Slam and is averaging 18 points and 11 boards.

After it took a late rally to pull out a win over the London Rollergirls on Sunday, the Cosa Nostra Donnas jumped out to an early 63-8 lead over the Jet City Rollergirls en route to a 304-98 win on Monday night at Skateland!